Online commerce has become a convenient and accessible alternative to shopping at brick and mortar retail locations. For instance, customers may visit a merchant's website to browse an electronic catalog of items through a web browser. The merchant's website may include a virtual shopping cart in which a customer may place items they desire to purchase. Customers can complete a checkout process offered by the merchant's website in order to purchase the items in the virtual shopping cart. The merchant may operate a network of one or more order fulfillment centers at which items of the customer's order are prepared for shipping. The merchant may provide a prepared shipment that includes purchased items to a shipment carrier. The shipment carrier may operate a shipping network capable of delivering shipments to customer-specified locations, such as a residential address. In many cases, the merchant may keep a customer apprised of the status of their order through one or more messages. These messages may be delivered through a variety of channels, such as electronic mail (“email”), text messaging (e.g., Short Message Service (SMS) messages), or other types of electronic messages.
While the system and method for providing substitute item recommendations in order status messages is described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that the system and method for providing substitute item recommendations in order status messages is not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the system and method for providing substitute item recommendations in order status messages to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the system and method for providing substitute item recommendations in order status messages as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.